Opinion about personalization of not the most popular interface element Android …
Original material
If you don't like the launcher on Android, download another one. Pissed off by the keyboard? Use a third party. After all, Android is an open choice, and customization is an integral part of the Android experience … But personalizing your lock screen is no good at all. Third-party solutions are especially poor. For a very short time, everything was a little better, but today the situation is deplorable. And there is nothing wrong with that, it is not worth wasting your time.
We used to look at the lock screen dozens, if not hundreds of times a day, so it made more sense to personalize it. Today these screens can be easily missed, especially when it comes to devices with an iris scanner like the Galaxy S9. Thanks to the use of fingerprint sensors in many phones, you can not see the lock screen for weeks: press on the sensor while lifting the phone, and when you look at it, it is already unlocked and ready to go.
Even before biometric sensors and the proliferation of fingerprint sensors, we saw the lock screen less and less, thanks to the Smart Lock functionality in its many variations. It allowed you to keep the device unlocked, provided it was connected to a trusted Bluetooth device, for example, a car stereo or smartwatch. Smart Lock allows you to keep your smartphone unlocked when you are with the owner and can unlock it with a voice command and the Voice Match option in Google Assistant. With its help, you can even turn off the smartphone lock at home or at work, although in the second case, you must have a sufficient level of trust in your colleagues. In short, we no longer spend as much time 'alone' with the lock screen to customize it. And this is good, because there was something with something.
Poor themed design and less security
Customizing the lock screen went through many obstacles in its lifetime, but the only important thing was that most of the time it just didn't work. Third-party widgets were only supported in the days of Jelly Bean, and most of the third-party lock screen widgets that appeared after the abandonment of widgets were not worth installing due to advertising, and even more so – a purchase.
Lock screen 'replacements' presented additional security concerns, requiring you to disable the lock screen to use them.
If you are using any applications that require a lock (such as Google Pay or corporate email), then alternatives to the stock lock screen cannot be considered. Even if you install them, then in themselves such applications are bad and do not even stand next to the pre-installed lock screen. Not worth it.
Use Smart Lock, Fingerprint Sensors, Iris or Face Unlock if you like. Just don't use alternative lock screens and hacked widgets that have been out of support for years. It’s not worth the effort, don’t.
If you really want to personalize the lock screen on your device, here's what you can do:
• Set your original background image – most wallpaper apps and third-party launchers will give you the option to set separate wallpapers for your lock screen and desktop.
• Add text to the lock screen using the appropriate option in the settings. Many people display information here in the style of “if you find this device, then call the number …”, but you can also use this space for a motto or quote.
• If the smartphone has the ability to choose the style of the clock on the lock screen (this is what Samsung and some other manufacturers do), then go ahead, choose the clock that best suits the previously selected 'wallpaper'. Samsung also has so-called FaceWidgets: a few simple functional widgets available on the lock screen, such as playback controls and the next alarm.
We recognize that we will see less of the lock screen as Android continues to offer faster authentication methods and expand the presence of Smart Lock. Choose a 'wallpaper' and a clock style and forget about it.
By Ara Wagoner
Interestingly, even at the time of supporting third-party widgets on the lock screen, few developers saw anything promising in them. I remember writing to the authors of the TSF Shell launcher with a request to create something of their own for the lock screen, but no one heard me, as expected. I wondered how often I look at the lock screen. It turned out quite often, especially in the context of the double-tap wake-up function in my OnePlus 5: quickly 'woke up', viewed updates and messages and turned off the screen with the same two taps, convenient and quick.
At the time of using smartphones from Samsung, I simply put black on the background of the lock screen, so that nothing would distract from the content and notifications. I removed widgets as much as possible and rarely changed the font, so, indulge. So I don’t perceive the abandonment of the paradigm of frequent use of lock screens as something negative, rather the opposite.
What do you say, geeks personalizers and just lovers of seeing information on the lock screen? Will it be difficult to give up the habit of adjusting this parameter for yourself? Or is biometric authentication not something critical for you and you can neglect it?